By Chris Rotolo
LINCROFT – Just weeks after capturing its 25th Meet of Champions title, yet again earning the designation as New Jersey’s top scholastic running club, members, alumni and friends of the Christian Brothers Academy (CBA) cross country program gathered on the great lawn of the sprawling Lincroft campus to honor a legend.
At the foot of a road that will soon wind its way up to the entrance of the Colts’ new state-of-the-art track and field facility, a sheet was lifted from atop a bronze memorial to the late Dr. George Sheehan, an American running icon who co-founded the private school in 1959.
A setting sun illuminated every wrinkle of the composed but competitive grimace on Sheehan’s face, as the masterful Toms River-based sculptor Brian Hanlon – who ran competitively at Monmouth University – captured the luminary in mid-stride of a race he most certainly sought to win.
“If I know my father, he’s here right now with us thinking he’s about to win the biggest trophy of his life. And believe me, he loved winning trophies,” said Michael Sheehan, a Red Bank resident and the youngest son of Sheehan.
While sharing memories of his father with the captive audience on hand for the unveiling, Michael recalled when, at the age of 28, he experienced firsthand the competitive spirit of his then 69-year-old father, while the two were driving together to run the annual Belmar 5 Mile Run.
“He knew I’d been training for the race because I was challenged by a friend and I just wanted to defend the family name. So, I was a little surprised that morning when he turned to me in his Honda Civic and said, ‘You’re not beating me today.’ I’m not even racing you. I’m racing Martin. He said, ‘I know, but you’re still not beating me.’ And of course, at the 4-mile mark, there I was breaking down. And there he was passing me. Our race was over,” Sheehan said.
George Sheehan was a competitive runner before running was omnipresent in local parks and trail systems, and of course, at the scholastic and NCAA levels. It wasn’t until an American by the name of Frank Shorter won gold in the marathon at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany that a running boom ignited back in the States.
“At the time, nobody came back after college and ran, especially not around their own neighborhood, unless they were being chased,” said Tim McLoone, local restaurateur and Rumson-Fair Haven High School girls cross country and track and field coach. “In George’s case, it was like ‘Who is this crazy guy running down the street?’ ”
But that lack of public familiarity didn’t stop Sheehan from founding a running program on campus that has since turned into a perennial national power. That rise to prominence began in the 1960s with the start of “The Freshman Run,” an annual tradition that continues to this day.
“The entire freshman class lines up on our course, and the first six finishers become our freshman cross country team,” explained Bill Chandler, a Class of 1966 graduate. “It’s not a very democratic selection process… but this event has the doc’s fingerprints all over it.”
Sheehan raced collegiately at Manhattan College, where in 1939 he helped the Jaspers to an IC4A Indoor Championship. The following year he earned the Junior National AAU indoor mile championship and was eventually inducted into the Jaspers Athletics Hall of Fame in 1992.
After attending medical school to become a cardiologist, following in the footsteps of his own father, George served in the South Pacific as a Navy doctor during World War II on the battleship USS Daly.
“He saw firsthand the horrors of war, having ventured into Nagasaki just days after the atom bomb was dropped. He never spoke of those experiences,” Michael Sheehan said through tears.
Though George was silent about the atrocities he witnessed overseas, he was not short on words when writing about his passions: family and running. He married the concepts over the course of eight books and thousands of articles published in Runner’s World Magazine and a regular column in The Red Bank Register.
“When I would run with him, on the way to the race we’d be talking about running and Mets baseball, but on the way home it was George Santayana and all of these philosophers, and I’m just glazing over,” McLoone said. “But I came to realize that he wasn’t just this fountain of knowledge who was talking to just to talk, he was writing his next column. And I didn’t have much to offer; just doing a lot of sagely nodding.”
Alongside the Sheehan’s bronze likeness sits a plaque with some of his most timeless quotations, including one that continues to resonate with the Colts’ dominant running program.
“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.”
“When the young students look at this statue while they go about their days, we hope that they don’t just see a founder or a runner, but that they see a man fully engaging his body, mind and spirit in seeking his own truth. For those that do see that, how wonderful it is to know that my father’s spirit continues to inspire,” Michael added in closing.
CBA’s $1.2 million Sheehan Track and Field Complex is still in development but is due to open for competition in the spring.
The article originally appeared in the December 8 – 14, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
